The feminist fantasy always runs the same way. A tough no nonsense woman tries to break in to an all male sphere. To prove herself she must first pass, no, exceed the ridiculous and unnecessarily high standards which men diabolically erected hundreds or even thousands of years ago in preparation for this very day. At first the 1 dimensional macho characters all mock and deride her. But eventually they come to learn that she is every bit as tough as the guys are, in addition to her extra abilities which she has by virtue of being a woman. Ultimately they can’t help but respect her determination and ability, and dare I say it, girl power. She’s “opened the door”, and now women eagerly flood into the previously all male sphere! Roll credits.
I’ll stop typing for a bit so the feminists in the audience can savor the moment… Smoke em if you got em.
Everyone back? Here’s the problem; most of the time it simply doesn’t work that way. At least, not for a long time it hasn’t. And quite often it is the feminists themselves who screw it up. They sell you GI Jane, where Demi Moore shaves her head and knocks out one armed pushups like they are going out of style. But that is just the picture on the package. What’s inside the box is something totally different. And women and men fall for it every time. The thing is the feminists don’t really care if they deliver as promised. In fact, so long as they can make the package with an impressive picture they don’t care if anything is inside it. So they sell you a woman aviation pioneer, just as good as the guys. What they deliver is a woman who is almost all attitude, and very little skill. Then they lose interest as soon as they can check the box and say “See, women do that too!”
Strangely for feminists make believe is just as good as the real deal, and before you know it they are off focusing on the next item on the prove women are just like men to-do list. Actually maybe it isn’t so strange, because after all of the girl power cheering stops, being the only woman in the grease pit doing oil changes or any number of dirty, dangerous, and physically demanding jobs stops being exciting and glamorous.
More importantly, the initial high of being accepted as being as-good-as-the-men more often than not never actually happens. The men see the ridiculous contortions the employer was forced by feminists to go through in order for the woman to be hired in the first place. The woman gets as much respect as the nonathletic kid who everyone knows only made the team because his dad is the coach. In theory a truly exceptional woman would be able to make the cut without feminists butting in demanding they put their thumb on the scale. Such a woman in all likelihood would gain the respect of the men. But feminists always insist on screwing that up by demanding that the rules for women should be far less stringent. Or when a pioneering woman does manage to break some barrier, they ruin the moment by crying about how few other women actually made it, and demand the standards for women be rolled back anyway.
Think about it, your great great granddaughter will still be complaining that men won’t really let her do x, y, or z. We have women today complaining about men not doing enough to encourage them to write open source software, or edit wikipedia.
But if women don’t even get to bask in the we-are-the-same-as-the-guys feeling, why must we continuously move heaven and earth for each new item on the to-do list? For example, why rework our nuclear sub fleet and antagonize the men who man them so a handful of women can work in stressful conditions and cramped quarters with men for months at a time? Per the US Navy Press Release:
On July 28, 1994, Congress was notified of policy changes to expand the number of assignments available to women in the Navy. At that time, opening assignments aboard submarines to women was deemed cost prohibitive and assignments on submarines remained closed. Currently, women make up 15 percent of the active duty Navy – 52,446 of 330,700. Integrating women into the submarine force increases the talent pool for officer accessions and subsequently the force’s overall readiness, ensuring that the U.S. Submarine Force will remain the world’s most capable for ensuing decades.
Women only make up 15% of the active duty Navy after decades of hand wringing and excuse making. With the opening of submarines, the only position in the Navy women aren’t welcomed into is the SEALs. My question to the women reading this is at what point is proving women can do x not worth it. Is any cost too high? What if only one woman at any given time ends up having the desire and ability to serve in the sub fleet, but the other 99% + of the submariner force is less interested in staying in the job because they no longer see it as elite, or because their wives no longer feel the same way about their service? Would the warm feeling of checking off the box marked __ Submarines be worth a billion dollars? How about 2 billion, or 10? 100 billion? Is any price too high to pay in order to check off the box?
This isn’t just a theoretical question. Consider the LA Fire Department. Women had to check the LAFD box, so in the 1990s LA County spent millions refitting fire stations. From Christine Pelisek’s LA Weekly article Women Firefighters: The Gender Boondoggle:
To prove its point, Los Angeles City Hall — just like Seattle, Miami, San Francisco, San Diego and other major cities, together with state governments — spent millions to recruit, train and house women. Los Angeles outfitted most of its 106 fire stations with costly women’s lockers and women’s showers, while politicians as well as fire chiefs Donald Manning and William Bamattre engaged in years of lip service, conjuring up an image of a new, professional class of woman firefighters.
Women came to figure prominently in the praise party on the LAFD’s Web site, http://www.LAFD.org, where the Hero of the Month, for six months running — in a department of mostly men — has been Tamara Chick, a woman so key to the department’s goals that she is now in charge of female recruitment.
They proved their point. Some women can be firefighters. I’ll pause so the feminists can get their pencils out to check the Firefighter box, high five each other, and bask in their accomplishment.
Pelisek continues:
There’s just one problem, and it’s a problem no fire chief, mayor or recruiter wants to admit. In a department of 3,940 people, the second largest municipal firefighting force in the U.S., the Weekly has learned that the women who work on the fire line could squeeze inside a Hummer limo.
Just 27 women are actually fighting Los Angeles fires.
This isn’t limited to Los Angeles:
No firefighting women died during the attacks on the World Trade Center, because New York City has just 31 women out of 11,600 firefighters. Women represent only 2.5 percent of the nearly 300,000 professional firefighters nationwide.
But wait, isn’t this proof that women are discriminated against? How hard can it be to hold a hose or climb a ladder? Men have hatched a diabolical plan to keep women from running into burning buildings! Except that isn’t true. Christine Pelisek interviewed the women who washed out of the training:
What these two women saw — and experienced — is not what you might think.
Nobody tried to make either of them fail. No “old boys” got in their way. Mary was admired by her male boss and encouraged at each step to be a firefighter. “I was just too slow,” she says. Firefighting equipment, like the one-man ladders, started “getting heavier,” and she began to realize she wasn’t strong enough to repeatedly lift it — a necessary skill. Eight weeks into the training — which causes plenty of men to wash out — Mary was stunned to realize that her body had begun “breaking down.”
Big deal you might say. So what if they demoralized the entire force with a game of make believe and blew millions of dollars on showers and locker rooms which now sit mostly unused. But those millions could have been spent in any number of productive ways. What training did the firefighters not receive which could have prevented injuries to them or the death of those they are charged with rescuing? What new equipment could the department have otherwise purchased which would have lessened the burden these men face? More importantly, what did the LAFD as an organization really get for its money? Can the 27 women fight fires any better than the men they displaced? That seems highly unlikely.
But what about the military, and combat in particular? How strong do you have to be to fire a gun? Maybe firefighters have a physically demanding job, but combat surely can’t be that difficult. After all, we have all of those nifty gadgets! Gooseberry Bush links to an article which makes much the same point in her blog post Soldier Barbie:
Heather Pfleuger — an exuberant, all-American, girl-next-door — was transformed when she arrived in Afghanistan. She’d shrug into her body armor, strap on her helmet, yank on gloves, goggles and scarf, and slide down behind her turret-mounted Mark-19, a 40mm grenade launcher. From there, she could kill an armored vehicle and everybody in it a mile away.
When she whooped with glee and led a convoy outside the wire, local Afghan fighters, hard men who’d faced down the Russians and the Taliban, fell respectfully silent.
See! All we have to do is outfit each woman with a big enough truck and a belt fed weapon, and men will fear them! But the argument that women are already being allowed to do nearly all jobs in the military -including those which can involve firing a weapon- doesn’t prove that we should open the the few remaining all male jobs up to women. According to the article only 14% of the military are in jobs not open to women. Keep in mind that the services picked the jobs women were best suited to first, and even then had to massively lower the standards for women to put them there.
The military is the last area where women don’t have the same or better opportunity as men, and even there we are only talking about the last 14%! 86%, massively lowered standards, and a rework of the entire culture of the armed services isn’t enough. I’ll come back to this question a little later. Right now I’ll share some more information on the remaining 14%. I explained in my last post on the topic that Iraq and Afghanistan have shown that for the infantry war being a very physical fight hasn’t changed. Actually it has gotten more physical, partly due to those nifty gadgets. Per the Washington Post:
In Afghanistan, soldiers routinely carry loads of 130 to 150 pounds for three-day missions, said Jim Stone, acting director of the soldier requirements division at the Army Infantry Center at Fort Benning, Ga. In Iraq, where patrols are more likely to use vehicles, loads range from 60 to nearly 100 pounds, he said.
“It’s like a horse: We can load you down, and you just don’t last as long,” Stone said.
Injuries — the bulk of them muscular-skeletal — are the main cause of hospitalizations and outpatient visits for active-duty Army soldiers, leading to about 880,000 visits per year, according to Army data. The injuries include sprains, stress fractures, inflammation and pain from repetitive use, and they are most common in the lower back, knees, ankles, shoulders and spine. They are one of the leading reasons that soldiers miss duty, said Col. Barbara Springer, director of rehabilitation under the Army surgeon general.
Everyone seems to agree that our Soldiers and Marines are carrying too much, but what would you have them do without when out in the field and the firefight starts? Should they make do with less water? Food? Protective gear? Ammunition? Less powerful weapons? These men are working at the upper limit of what the human body -the male human body- can carry under battlefield conditions. No amount of impassioned argument about good ol boys will change the need for infantrymen to carry the implements of war. Men can barely carry the load. How many women can we honestly expect to do this? And why should we believe for a nanosecond that they wouldn’t insist on a separate standard for women, the same as they have for the other 86% of the positions.
The problem feminists have is a powerful case of diminishing marginal returns. The first barriers women broke down had lots of opportunity and were often things women were very well suited for. Over the decades, as they were more and more successful, they have had to shift their efforts to the much smaller opportunities where women are less and less suited for. So they had to fudge a bit, and then a lot, to keep opening doors for women. In a way I kind of feel bad for them. No amount of make believe will open these last doors. They may be able to dictate the change, but they won’t be kidding anyone.
So why do they do it? Why all of the knashing of teeth in an obviously futile effort, for a minuscule opportunity the vast majority of women would pray to never have to do? Feminists can’t help themselves. It comes down to who they are, and what makes them tick.
Feminists lay awake at night consumed with the knowledge that somewhere out there there are men who are proud to be men, and there is no woman there to tell them she is just as good as they are.
I almost feel sorry for them.
“Feminists lay awake at night consumed with the knowledge that somewhere out there there are men who are proud to be men, and there is no woman there to tell them she is just as good as they are.”
haha, why haven’t I read this in more places?
“the only position in the Navy women aren’t welcomed into is the SEALs”
Crysis 2 differs.
Before I’d have let it slide, but it took something away from realism, at least from whatever little of it a game like that can have.
And then when women do get into stereotypically male things, the crazy liberal feminists send us hate mail! Last year one of my friends was in an article about women who hunt and shoot. Oh lordy did she get some choice emails accusing her of being a bloodthirsty murderer and whatnot.
I’m a female computer programmer and it baffles me why there are so few women, particularly the feminists who supposedly fought so hard, in my field. Tons of scholarships, enrichment opportunities, attention…where are you gals??? Oh, at the liberal arts college studying Gender Studies so you can become a barista. The real feminists are the ones writing code, not the ones complaining on blogs.
I assure you that I never lie awake at night upset that men are men. I like men. I’m also a feminist. We are different but equal. I bring contributions. You bring contributions. But not all my contributions are my ability to provide you with sexual pleasure, housekeeping skills, and children.
Also, why isn’t there a push to bring more males into teaching, or early education?
In my unionized workplace that involves physical labor, everyone knows who the deadweight is, who takes off most time for injuries, but because of Political Correctness, it can never be exposed. This in turn, similar to how socialism destroys incentive, leaves the hard-working bitter and apathetic to make any extra effort.
Cubicles.
Lots and lots of cubicles with lots of digital information to push around.
Perfect for the gals.
No bullets flying, no heavy lifting and fatal temperatures, no physical danger. Bonus – HR department for back up.
Oh, and no programming code, thankyouverymuch. It’s hard.
Melissa
I’m a female computer programmer and it baffles me why there are so few women, particularly the feminists who supposedly fought so hard, in my field.
Because var(g) for men > var(g) for women. That’s why.
I remember reading a study (which I don’t have the link to atm) that showed that “coed” units have a higher male casualty rates because the men go out of their way to protect the women.
You can’t change instincts.
Because most women want the feeling of accomplishment, but not the work that it takes to earn it.
That’s the problem with this “equality of outcome” BS, women are switching majors to an easier field after taking all the seats in a twisted gender parity that makes a class with 90% male applicants seat 50% female students.
I’d give half the women and half the men who applied a seat, leaving a class that was 90% male, the same percentage as there was in applicants.
That wouldn’t be fair though, I’d be oppressing women by giving them actual equality rather than preferential treatment.
Even better, don’t list sex on the application, let their experience and qualifications speak for themselves.
Same thing with any position, screen the applications for those who are qualified without ever meeting them, and with no mention of race or sex. Then if more white males are given the position nobody can scream sexism or racism.
We are not different but equal. We are different. Some things men do women can’t and some things a woman does a man can’t/won’t do. Different thinking patterns. Different physiology.
Interesting comments…. and a denial of reality.
Have any of the female commentators hiked for a day with 40 or 50 kilos on their backs? That is carrying two heavy packs — maxed to the 22 kilos you are allowed to pack in one bag to carry on. There is a reason why old farts like me go into the bush with minimal equipment — we can no longer carry all the stuff. The pack is balky. Things move. It hurts. But… the body armour and weapons are getting heavier, not lighter, and although food and gear can me made quite light, water weighs a kilo per litre.
Most (nearly all) women cannot do this. Physically. For days, weeks, months. Most men cannot do this.
Now… if you want that to be corrected, you could start prescribing human growth factor and anabolic steroids and supplements to all women and smaller men from basic training on… and produce women like FloJo and East European Sprinters (their rate of cancer post deployment will be higher, but they will be able to carry the load).
Now there are some women — Valerie Vili for example (1.87m tall, 120 kilo ranked in top 4 world wide in shotput) — can do these things. But they are the exceptions, not the rule
The pressure to survive encourages women to have less variation — in height, strength, mathmatic/geek etc — than men. There are simply more men on the top end of the curve — for any measure, and even more men on the bottom. Life is not equal and it is usually hard. And not matter of legislation, EEO policies etc can change that.
@Author (I mean the commenter running by this name 🙂
Your straw man non-argument is lame.
If you’re a “good feminist”, please show some proof that you have protested against your retarded sisters creating all this mess.
“Heather Pfleuger — an exuberant, all-American, girl-next-door — was transformed when she arrived in Afghanistan. She’d shrug into her body armor, strap on her helmet, yank on gloves, goggles and scarf, and slide down behind her turret-mounted Mark-19, a 40mm grenade launcher. From there, she could kill an armored vehicle and everybody in it a mile away.”
I guarantee you that she was not taking out armored vehicles with a 40mm grenade launcher, nor was she facing very many Taliban armored vehicles, either. Where do you get people to write nonsense like this? Do military reporters know absolutely nothing about weapons or the Taliban?
In fighting hyper-feminism (today’s feminism, as opposed to that of Susan B. Anthony), this is the kind of bovine scat we have to deal with before we can even start debating the issues, apparently.
@ Bike Bubba: “(today’s feminism, as opposed to that of Susan B. Anthony)”
The latter (or rather, the former) led inexorably to the former (or rather, the latter).
Undoing the latter-day version, will require undoing the former version.
But not all my contributions are my ability to provide you with sexual pleasure, housekeeping skills, and children.
… which clearly gets at the root of what Dalrock was saying…
Please submit to the Spearhead, or something.
Good piece. Nice summary, well-articulated point.
I have posted here under a different moniker but for this comment there will be none. This is my observation as a female engineer. I actually think that men are better engineers than women (GASP!!)
I went into engineering because I bought the feminist skubalon in high school, and now it is pretty much too late for me to change my career path. Although I am a civil engineer which is more suited to women than some other types. A few things I have noticed along the way:
– When I am around females I am considered veryveryvery doubleplus smart, like MIT genius. Most women see me as some kind of hyper-performing mega success. In reality I am kind of a slacker with about an 85-percentile intellect – bright but nothing special.
– This is even the case when I am around other female engineers.
– When I am around jock males we don’t even speak the same language.
– When I am around nerd males I am probably somewhere in the 40-percentile intellect, comparatively.
– I have noticed that even average-intellect males make better engineers than me, a somewhat bright female. The males who got Cs in school make better engineers than me, who got As.
– Female engineers are some of the nastiest, most petty people in the world. My firm has 4, myself included. We all hate each other.
Thanks Gorbachev. I’ll send Welmer a message letting him know he can post this there if he wants.
Where are your statistics to back up your argument? Amongst the women who qualified for military service or to become firefighters or police officers, how many of them have quit because they just wanted to prove they were better than men.
That’s an assertion you’ve made. Can you back it up? And can you compare it to the statistics of men who’ve also quit after qualifying? Bring it. If you’re really intelligent and your opinions are sound, you should be able to do that. Back it up.
[D: Your continued use of strawman arguments is tiring. If you aren’t doing this on purpose, try quoting the person you are challenging in your comments.]
By the way, I answered your questions about women being possibly better snipers than men. I provided a link. You haven’t commented. Is it because you can’t without sounding stupid? You asked Melissa to provide a link. Both Melissa and I responded, and you’ve done nothing. BACK IT UP.
@Author
By the way, I answered your questions about women being possibly better snipers than men. I provided a link. You haven’t commented. Is it because you can’t without sounding stupid? You asked Melissa to provide a link. Both Melissa and I responded, and you’ve done nothing. BACK IT UP.
Melissa made the assertion that “There are clearly things women can do just as well and in fact there is evidence women make better snipers for example.” My response to Melissa was:
I’m also curious if you have any links on women being better snipers. Aren’t snipers held to a higher physical standard than ordinary infantry? I would be very surprised if they were held to a lower standard at the very least. Any info you can share would be appreciated.
You responded with a link to a story about a woman who had completed counter sniper training for Air Guard security force personnel. The article specifically states that this was different than the sniper training for the Marines or the Army because those snipers are part of the infantry, not policing. It also doesn’t say she was better than the men (top honors went to 2 men), but that she was an above average student.
Melissa responded to my request for a link with:
Marksmanship is one of the few sports in which men and women can compete without men compete dominating. The top war snipers are mostly men, but there is a woman in the top 10.
All of this is in the context of a discussion of whether women should be part of the last 14% of positions in the armed forces. This wasn’t a discussion about marksmanship or women in police roles.
You wrote about police officers and firefighters in this blog post. I’d be interested in seeing the statistics to back up your argument that all women just wan to qualify in order to prove that they’re better than men, and then they just back our or resign. That was an assumption you made in this post. Back it up.
Author:
1.) There’s no such thing as a feminist who likes men.
2.) It’s commonsense that women do not belong in these kinds of professions: your argument is the typical feminist line of trying to disprove what is obvious to anyone. The real purpose behind putting women in these types of professions is to denigrate and devalue men.
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At17, I was the only girl the college and Div 1 basketball teams [men’s teams] would let in on their monday night rat ball at a local gymnasium. [No, I wasn’t sleeping with any of them.] Later in University, I was still playing pick-up basketball with the guys until one day an “old” guy came and joined in, too. We all backed off a bit, myself included. The result? He thought he was ‘as good’ as the rest of us. A little light went off in my head… though I had better skills than 50% of the guys there… that 50% weren’t the real athletes of the group. I was a girl jock, but not better than the real guy jocks. Pretty darn good, but not AS good. And that’s okay. They can’t bake and decorate a cake or write poetry or design a makeup palette to save their life.
Nothing wrong with people venturing out into non-gender specific professions and roles: as long as the standards are not adjusted to enable them to do so. Male bakers and fashion designers have to be as good or better than their female counterparts in the kitchen to be taken seriously, and the same should be said in the military and other professions. If you want to play with the big boys you better have big boy game.
The incredible irony is that by lowering the standards so women [or anyone else] can join in on all the fun, we eliminate the opportunity for a woman who is naturally able to make the grade to truly demonstrate level of accomplishment.
I’d like to see a disabled athlete kick the crap out of an able bodied competitor: that is possible in some sports and would truly do something to change the way we see people who have physical disabilities. As is, they are stuck in the Special Olympics. There is nothing wrong with the Special Olympics, of course – it is good to compete against the best of the best in your field and skill level or we wouldn’t bother with Tom Thumb hockey… but if you were capable of competing against the able bodied you would feel denied your opportunity to compete, even if you’re standing on the gold medal platform.
The latter (or rather, the former) led inexorably to the former (or rather, the latter).
I agree, Will. The first wave feminists were not much better than the 60’s feminists that cranked up the volume and led us to what we see today. I was actually a bit taken back when I did some research of my own. So much so that I posted my discoveries:
The First Wave
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Did you see that astounding suicide rate of female vets?
http://religionnewsblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/mamas-dont-let-your-baby-girls-grow-up.html
The “checklist” sounds more like a desire to be venerated and admired on a constant basis rather than pushing any serious limits or knocking down actual barriers.
For example, the first man to climb Everest was knighted and regarded as a hero. The first woman to do so was also widely admired (I assume) and venerated. These days climbing Everest is generally seen as no big deal. Sure it’s no walk in the park but at this point it is more an indicator of your own personal dedication and wallet size. Note – this may also be a reason why people attempt the climb without oxygen in order to bring back some of the exclusivity of being in “the club”. I’m waiting for people to start challenging the peak clad in furs and using wooden tools all in the name of “purity”.
In a tangential way this reminds me of when the brother of a friend of mine finally admitted he was gay. The reaction was not one that he was expecting – nobody really cared. His parents already had grandkids and the rest of us had him pegged for years. He was expecting a big reaction, positive (“wow, how brave of you!”) or negative (“I have no son!”) but instead got a collective shrug. His parents asked if he was “playing safe” and the rest of us were more relieved than anything else as we didn’t have to play along with his straight act. A few months later he mentioned that the non-reaction actually made him somewhat depressed since he was not expecting it at all.
That’s also my typical reaction to a woman loudly proclaiming some achievement – a shrug. When asked why I’m so indifferent, I merely state that I thought that women were equal to men and that I’ve seen men do that kind of stuff all the time. The fact that an “equal” person is doing the same is not novel at all. That forces one of two reactions – either an admission that they aren’t equal and that the achievement really is special, or a realization that what they think they have accomplished really is nothing special.
To add to the overarching theme of battlefield kit getting heavier again, one only has to look at history to see that the invention of the gun temporarily lightened the load for one reason – armor was useless. Now that body armor is actually effective again, an individual soldier can look at adding roughly 16-35 pounds depending on coverage in addition to all the normal gear any soldier has always had to carry. Add new tech such as GPS, NVG, thermal goggles etc. and the batteries to go with them. Add a Javelin missile system and you’re looking at some serious extra weight.
lifeinlonglegs, good comments.
I have to admit though that I found myself thinking about the Onion Movie bit about disabled athletes. I’m a baaad man.
http://rutube.ru/tracks/1273247.html?v=2985fc57d182911f563d0eb323989c48
John Long Silver playing football.
Justin:,
Did you see that astounding suicide rate of female vets?
http://religionnewsblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/mamas-dont-let-your-baby-girls-grow-up.html
Grimly, I say “welcome to equality”. Veteran men, especially combat vets, have had a higher suicide rate that most people for, well, ever. That’s one reason why in the 19th century there were “old soldier’s homes”, usually maintained by a fraternal organization or by other vets, because no one comes back from a war the same as they went. Some come back in physical tatters, some come back in mental shards, some don’t really come back at all. There’s an old movie from right after WWII called “The Best Years Of Our Lives”. It is worth watching.
Grimly, I repeat, “welcome to equality”. 90% of people in prisons are men. The vast majority of people living in the street are men, although we see more reports about women and children, because that makes for better “infotainment”. If real equality is what women want, then that means a lower standard of both life and death for a lot of women, in order to catch up — or perhaps “catch down” — to men.
Mao Tse Tung famously said, “A revolution is not a tea party”. That statement is like an onion, the more you peel back, the more you see. A counter-insurgency war such as is going on in the sandbox is a serious thing, most especially for those who go in harm’s way, looking for a fight. But also for support services, because the “war” can potentially be just about anywhere. It isn’t a really big game of paintball, either.
The ability to disassociate, the ability to compartmentalize, the ability to shut all emotions down, the ability to focus totally on one task to the exclusion of everything else including that nasty wet stuff that just sprayed across part of your body from someone else — these are essential traits for fighting, or even for just functioning in a zone where a fight is going on. They are all traits more common in men.
So in order to function in a war zone, women must make themselves mentally like men, and remain that way for hours, days, weeks. It has to take a toll on them, in a lot of ways both obvious and subtle. And thus, sadly, it is not a surprise to find such a suicide rate.
The reality is extremely anti-“progressive”: women as a rule should not be in fights. They shouldn’t be in war zones, except in proscribed support roles, such as nursing. It is bad for them in the long run, both physically and mentally. It’s bad for men, too, but dare I say it? Men process the world differently than women do, and can be less damaged by such things mentally than women (can, may, but maybe not).
All of this being my way of saying that war is too important to be left to politicians, but if a war is to be fought, it must be fought to win. And casting women into roles their own biology makes them unfit for is not only stupid, it is criminal. Doing so to score political points in some game of “who’s better” is criminal and disgusting.
It represents the ultimate objectification of women: regarding them as mere pawns to be used and expended for the political gratification of feminists both young and old who would never, ever expose themselves to such nasty, horrific things.
Hypocrites.
Anonymous Reader, great points.
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It must be highly demoralizing for a combat unit when they have to carry the extra weight women can’t.
I mean, when I was in the defence force here at polar bear land, firstly there was your personal gear. Combat vest, assault rifle and backpack full of things. These weigh around 60-70 pounds.
But that’s not all, then theres your squad specific stuff; the heaviest being tent, tent layout and water. About 50 pounds total. These are carried by every soldier on their turn.
Moving on, lastly theres the stuff that belongs with your branch of service, to me that meant that we had to haul ass at the dense forests with a fuckin light (88 mm) grenade launcher. The barrel weighed around 30 pounds, and the mounting stand about the same. They’re a bitch to carry, too.
And of course the radio, couple miles of cable and a decoder.
All this is stuff you simply cannot do without, you can’t discard it in the nearest ditch. You have to make do with it. This being highly mobile coastal force, all this equipment was moved by muscle. You really can’t even drive with anything in such a terrain: Trees fuckin everywhere.
Don’t know about combat in sandy places though. Probably wouldn’t matter. Vehicles are big ol’ targets.
Luckily there was no women in my unit, because if a member of the squad cannot make his/her part it really puts a strain on the rest of us.
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@ Bike Bubba
But wasn’t first wave feminism just as radical? Didn’t they have as an end goal socialism, and the end of Marriage? Didn’t they want children to be taken care of and owned by the state to “free” women to be in the work force? Didn’t they want to prevent women from being stay at home mothers?
How say you that Susan B. Anthony was not radical?
Anonymous Reader, those were some awesome points.
“All of this being my way of saying that war is too important to be left to politicians, but if a war is to be fought, it must be fought to win. And casting women into roles their own biology makes them unfit for is not only stupid, it is criminal. Doing so to score political points in some game of “who’s better” is criminal and disgusting.
It represents the ultimate objectification of women: regarding them as mere pawns to be used and expended for the political gratification of feminists both young and old who would never, ever expose themselves to such nasty, horrific things. ”
Tangentially, the above is what I’ve recently realised I’ve been buying into my whole life. I’ve been told/sought out the idea that because feminism says something must be so, then I have to do it that way too. Even if it’s not what’s going to make me happy.
I’ve taken a good long hard look at myself, and realistically, I don’t think I’d have the stamina to do the most demanding jobs that the guys take on–physically (e.g. the Australian equivalent of the Marines) or mentally (e.g. barrister). I personally am not wired that way, I get tired easily; and I’ve realised that if I pursue that feminist dream when it’s not suited for my personality type (if it was, it’d be a different matter), I’m only going to make myself unhappy. I don’t want to make myself unhappy for something as questionable as this.
Realistically, I don’t want to be as good as or better than my husband at all the things that matter–i.e. spiritually, intelligence wise… As bad as it makes me sound, it’ll just lead to me thinking he’s my inferior, and I know I’m not going to be happy with someone who I believe is my inferior. However, going for someone whom I acknowledge as superior and the leader in the relationship means that I’m not always going to come out on top. And I like to win. But as my boyfriend says, there’s healthy competition, and there’s crazy competition, and trying to just be the best in everything definitely is crazy. So, as much as I don’t ever like being in the wrong, I’m going to have to get over it, because that’s life and everybody’s wrong at one point or another, and if I want a happy marriage with the guy as the head of the household (because I haven’t been brainwashed enough to believe that it’s every a happy household when it’s the other way around), I’m going to have to grow up and accept that you can’t have things both ways.
A few weeks ago a friend linked me to your blog, Dalrock (I hope you read this although considering the number of comments you get my chances are probably small), and it’s been one heck of a journey for me. Every time I come on here either you or one of the commentators say something that makes me re-examine myself. I’m realising that if I don’t change what I think now and seriously examine what I actually want, not what I think I’m supposed to want, and if I don’t act in accordance with my own best interests no matter what the media is telling me, then I’m just one of the brainwashed many who act as a pawn in ‘progressing’ this whole unhappy movement, benefiting nobody in the long run, least of all ourselves.
Thank goodness I’ve realised this at 19.
I’m sure future commentors will pull this post apart and show me that I’ve got a lot further of a ways to go. And to be honest, I can probably use that.
Now that I’ve posted the above… Oh, you poor over-used comma.
Flip:
Good on ya. I won’t pull your post apart. I can only say you’re a lot farther along at 19 than many women get their whole lives.
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